Several countries take steps – or pretend to take these – against wealthy tax evaders. As wealthy people have plenty money to pay clever people to think up brilliant schemes to increase wealth, while paying minimal tax, I remain sceptical of success.

Sure enough, the UK Guardian came up with an enticing article today. I started reading it with glee. Seems French President Hollande appointed an honest man in 2012.

Now this honest man, appointed to start the French crusade against wealthy tax evaders, has been sentenced to three years in prison. How many he really will spend inside, remains a question mark. After all, the rich remain different.

Only a few months in his job as tax tsar, it turned out this tax tsar had squirreled away money via Switzerland, Singapore, the Isle of Man – for over twenty years. Money he, his now ex-wife, and others mainly earned through – among other things – a hair transplant clinique.

Images of the former Italian president Berlusconi came to mind straight away. Though the French clinic seems also to have treated French, English, and other mega-rich baldy-heads.

I was already sniggering, but then I read the last line. “After the … scandal broke, Hollande reinforced measures on financial corruption, ethics and transparency in political life.”